Mirrasul Azimbayli2

No ratings yet.

The research of “Interesting Engineering” platform found out that interconnected firms are monetizing user data and analytics from ‘1.9 billion devices’.

When you downloaded any application on your phone, did you get the notification asking for access to the location history?

Yes, I know. Most of us gave permission to those applications to access our data.

An initial report of The Next Web illustrated that some companies make a high amount of payments for privileged access to our location history which is stored on our mobile phones. Majority of them aim to keep it away from the spotlights. The industry faces sudden growth that is worth an estimated $12 billion. This involves the aggregators, collectors, marketplaces, and location intelligence firms.

The following report of TNW, called “The Markup”, stated 47 different firms collecting, selling, or trading the location data taken from our mobile phones. The findings show that an interconnected – collaborative group of organizations suggest a code to app developers, which can monetize user data and sell analytics from 1.9 billion devices. This could enable the external organization to access datasets from hundreds of millions of people. The article highlights six of the analyzed firms possessing the data from more than 1 billion devices, increasing accuracy of data in the industry.

Motherboard illustrated how X mode – gathering location data via apps collected data specifically from Muslim prayer apps in a 2020 report. Later this data was sold to military contractors for different purposes. Following the same year, in the report of Wall Street Journal it was found out that Venntel – another location data provider sold its collected data to federal agencies, which could help them with the immigration enforcement.

It is our choice whether we would like to provide them with our location data. I know that most apps require the location data such as weather forecast or maps related apps can’t function fully without knowing your location. However, not all apps need to have access to your location data. The main purpose of this is to analyze and use our location data to make more profit. Majority of applications ask for permission to access the location and it is easier to opt out, avoiding the risk. But for others? Time will show us how location data will be used next year, and if there will be new stricter regulations implemented to prevent malicious usage of the tech market.

Sources:
https://interestingengineering.com/your-phones-location-data-is-worth-12-billion
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqm5x/us-military-location-data-xmode-locate-x

5/5 (4)

Recent research shows artificial intelligence can help us to predict the weather. The system is called the nowcasting system developed by Scientists at Google-owned London AI lab DeepMind and the University of Exeter partnered with the Met Office.

In a traditional way, we use complex equations to forecast for only between six hours and two weeks’ time. The main global issue – climate change makes it difficult to make more accurate and reliable predictions for the weather. Sudden changes in the weather are caused by climate change. The decrease in the temperature difference between the North Pole and the equator challenges our current methods to make accurate weather forecasts. This issue urged the meteorological institutes to develop their tools and methods to follow the changes.

So, there is a big problem that the traditional methods and their tools cannot provide the same performance for the society and community. If we cannot forecast critical storms and floods, it can have more dangerous catastrophic consequences. The recent news all around the world showed unexpected critical storms and floods can cause life losses. This can lead to bigger damage for the society, and to increase the financial costs.

Good news is that! The scientists claim that AI systems can be the solution for this problem! It can make more accurate short-term predictions, including for critical storms and floods.

The research, published in the journal Nature, claimed that meteorologists significantly preferred the AI approach to complete their methods. AI approaches can make the method more powerful by decreasing time for forecasters with predicting the continuous growing data. Instead they can spend more time focusing on gaining a better understanding of the implications for the forecasts. For this reason, the AI approach can help to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and prove better predictions for the people. So, it can potentially save lives!

Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58748934
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190322105718.htm

Did you know that your phone’s location data is worth $12 billion?

6

Please rate this

Would you like to know whether it will rain in two hours’ time?

30

Please rate this